Detroiter wins gold for Chef of the Year in military culinary arts competition

Mar. 26, 2013

Written by

Detroit Free Press Washington Staff

WASHINGTON -- Scratch off another achievement for Detroit's Derrick Davenport, who can call himself the best chef in the U.S. armed forces.

Davenport, 36, a senior chief culinary specialist in the Navy, won a gold medal for Chef of the Year at this month's annual military culinary arts competition in Ft. Lee, Va.

The menu he cooked up was more Gordon Ramsay than George Patton, for sure. It included flounder and scallop with julienne squash and zucchini, quinoa and arugula salad; white sweet potato soup with squab sausage; roasted lamb loin with mushroom sauce, basmati rice and Edam cheese fritter; chocolate rum cake topped with chantilly crème and candied hazelnut crumb nougat.

And that wasn't the end of it. After the Chef of the Year competition, Davenport and Army Sgt. Sarah Deckert whipped up a four-course meal of roasted lamb with risotto, caramelized onion and parsnip soup -- all within four hours without knowing the ingredients they were getting in advance -- to take another first-place honor, beating out military chefs from Germany, Canada and France in an international competition.

Davenport, a 6-foot-2 former cook on a submarine, is the son of police officer, and grew up on the east side. He now works for Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Davenport was profiled in an article in the Free Press in May. In a news release, he said that the gold medal for Chef of the Year was satisfying, in part, because he works with two previous winners who give him a hard time.

"I felt like it was four years of preparation," said Davenport, a graduate of Schoolcraft College's culinary program who joined the Navy in 2000. "It feels good. It's a weight off my shoulders."

As for the international competition, Davenport said during last year's culinary olympics in Germany, the German team had it over the Americans.

"They beat us up pretty bad over there," Davenport said, referring to the Germans, "but it's good to reclaim victory on the home front."